Peter the Great (1685-1766), Russian Tsar. When he became Tsar, Peter modernized and expanded his realm, fighting several wars and founding the Russian Empire in 1721 at the Treaty of Nystad. This portrait, showing him in ceremonial armour with imperial regalia, is a work of oil on canvas, by the French portrait painter Jean-Marc Nattier (1685-1766). A battle scene is in the background at lower right. Nattier painted several portraits of the Tsar, including ones made in the period 1715 to 1717, during visits Peter made to both Amsterdam and Paris. This portrait is kept at the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia.